Specialist Hypnotherapy http://shaunmaloney.com
Sun, 20 Nov 2016 16:24:42 +0000en-UShourly1NLP Workshop Hits the Markhttp://shaunmaloney.com/nlp-workshop-hits-the-mark/
Sat, 02 Jul 2016 20:41:30 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=1769A brand new workshop that broke the mould for NLP training; moving away from the traditional training model of the one ‘man’ show at the front of the group cracking a few funnies and demonstrating this or that technique. Shaun did it another way; like he so often does. ‘Learn about NLP’ does exactly what it says on the tin, learning and practising NLP rather than the alternative of watching and…watching a bit more NLP.

I can’t think of a fitting punchline to the question, “What do you get with seven Therapists in a room?” I’m sure there is one, but let’s just say it’s the recipe for a great weekend. And didn’t they do well! (Didn’t someone say that before?).

Once we’d got the coffee, croissants, introductions and prelims out of the way, we got straight down to learning some of the nuances of language that we could use to our advantage and how it can indicate some of those unhelpful thinking patterns we’re all so attached to…was that an Ericksonian Generalisation?

We went through a myriad of explanatory topics and then got down to the practical
elements. A session on Eye Accessing Cues proved interesting and after a helpful demonstration of a Kinaesthetic Anchor, we then changed state and moved to the practice pods to test out our new found knowledge. Setting anchors, collapsing
anchors, stacking anchors and chaining them all featured – Did you know that anchors were so versatile?

And then there was the handout entitled, ‘How the Hell Do I Do the Swish Technique’, leading on to learning how Swish Patterns can be used to change a particularly stubborn unwanted behaviour into something a bit more palatable.

A quick and effective demo up the front was next before we all changed state once again (Anyone would think that changing state was emphasised on the course). We moved to the practice pods to get that energetic Swwiiiiishhhh into motion. There was plenty of energy in the room, especially from the shaking down and changing state in what sometimes appeared to be masked as a ‘bit of a dance’, while others took a rather more sedate and considered approach to their practice.

The latter part of day 2 saw the action figures come out (yes, that’s right). We watched as they moved around the cinema and then onto the comfy chairs as they demonstrated some pretty heavy weight stuff around the NLP Fast Phobia Cure. Much was discussed and it proved to be a rather emotive subject (no pun intended); so much so that it’ll probably form the basis for a whole separate training event. Action figures? Comfy chairs? Cinema? Don’t you wish you were there?

If you remember, in Part 1, we started to look into a fav area of mine, EYE ACCESSING CUES. We looked at internal representation, the lead representational system as well as a load of other good stuff. I left you hanging with the promise that I’d explain the picture of the face and the strange set of letters that were strategically placed around the face (the more observant of you would have noticed that there’s something different about this face…can’t quite put your finger on what it is?…..I might tell you later…but first let’s get back into EYE ACCESSING CUES).

OK, so let’s start with a little exercise to emphasise the learning point here. You’ll need to sit in front of a mirror. When you’re properly focused and have stopped noticing spots and pimples that just weren’t there yesterday (where do they come from?), look at your face (particularly your eyes) and ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many windows does your house have?

2. What would your car look like in 15 years if you never washed it?

3. What does your favourite song sound like?

4. What would your voice sound like if you were Donald Duck?

5. What does it feel like to take a warm bath or shower?

6. What does your voice sound like when you talk to yourself?

Done that? OK, now do it again,but this time noticing whichdirection(s) your eyes move as you think of the answers.

(Before you get too excited, this exercise is just to notice that your eyes are moving; normally we only notice and identify eye patterns in others.)

So, what’s happening? My eyes are moving, but how does this relate to that other face and those letters you’ve shown us?

Well…I’m glad you asked…

…Each of those questions above caused you to either access a memory or mentally construct some experience. If your eyes did not move, you may have looked in a particular direction for only a nanosecond, or perhaps defocused looking out in front of yourself. This is generally considered either visual or auditory remembered as the memory is in your present awareness.

Now ask someone else these same questions using the face picture as your reference. You’ll have to face them directly and remember the chart is normally organised. It may be helpful to jot down your findings as you watch their eyes so you can review them later.

What happens when people’s eyes move?

Please note: The following eye movements are as you watch someone’s eyes and when we refer to a location, this is your left or right as if the person is in front of you.

Visual Construct (Vc) – Up and to your left would be accessing an image they need to construct a picture of because they either have not seen it before, or because the picture has been stored in the past and not the immediate recall zone. It’s nearly impossible to tell if someone is lying from eye patterns alone. Be careful if assuming that people are lying or making things up just because their eyes move to Visual Construct. It could be that they just don’t have the information readily available. For example, what did you wear two days ago? When you find the answer to this question, you may have to construct what clothes you have, use internal dialogue to ask yourself the question, you may have to remember what you did that day and even construct what you might have looked like in a certain outfit that day. So, your eyes may go more to construct although you’re not making it up. To identify if someone is lying, you would need to calibrate the whole person – physiology, eyes, tonality, etc.

Visual Recall (Vr) – Up and to your right would elicit an image they have seen or imagined before.

Auditory Construct (Ac) – Lateral and to your left would be accessing something they have not heard before, or they have to construct a sound or conversation.

Auditory Recall (Ar) – Lateral and to your right would be eliciting something they have heard before. This could be a conversation or sound, and it could be of themselves or someone else.

Kinesthetic (K) – Eyes down and to your left would access a person’s feelings internally (e.g. emotions) or externally (e.g. tactile feel of velvet or a cat’s tongue).

Internal Dialogue (Id) – Eyes down and to your right would access the person’s self talk or internal dialogue.

Practice makes understanding eye accessing cues easy. You can learn by observing people’s eyes as you ask them questions in normal conversations; start noticing how different people use their eyes, but be careful not to freak them out! Notice how some make big and obvious movements, while others make minimal moves. Reality TV shows, talk shows and unscripted interviews are great to use as a learning tool as they are usually spontaneous. Turn the volume down on the TV for a while and just identify where the person’s eyes move. This is a great way to become unconsciously skilled at making meaning of eye patterns.

There are many practical uses of eye accessing cues, too many to list here. However, here are a few pointers that I have learned along the way in the Learning & Development world and would also be useful in any face to face client based circumstance.

Incorporating Eye Patterns into Life

Using eye accessing enables us to communicate in a way that more effectively matches another person’s current thinking style. This would enable you to respond by matching their eye movement with your words. When you do this, you will have more useful questions and replies and so build a closer rapport.

Vr – Looking up to their right; it would be a clue to use more visual words and questions. Use visual aids; show them examples, slides, brochures, pictures, diagrams but be careful of ‘Death by PowerPoint’.

K – Looking down to the left; it’s a clue to use feeling words and questions. Let your students touch things or try them on or something they can thumb through; get them doing stuff.

Id – Looking down to the right; to use more logical, thinking, analytical words and questions. Use graphs, charts and statistics, you could use management theory models and hard facts and figures.

Ar – Looking laterally to the right; use more auditory questions and examples. Explain and tell them about it. Use and refer to sounds, conversations and ask what they’ve heard.

Now, this is a skill you can practice and get good at in quite a short space of time (it only took me 20+years LoL). If you don’t use it in a professional context or to build your communication skills…it makes a fantastic party trick!

Enjoy.

]]>Are you getting enough?http://shaunmaloney.com/are-you-getting-enough/
Mon, 28 Sep 2015 19:25:21 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=1369Guess what, sleep is hugely important to your body. Sure, we all love that well-rested and alert feeling, but there’s plenty of stuff happening behind the scenes too, from repairing damaged skin cells to flushing out toxins that build up in your brain. If you notice one of these signs, it’s time to start thinking about your quantity and quality of sleep. Luckily, most of the time, these issues are reversible with a concerted effort to catch more ZZzzz’s.

Turns out we could all use a little more shut eye; too many people don’t get the recommended amount of sleep per night…Oh, and if you’ve heard that you must get 7 hours or 8 hours or whatever, then it’s pseudo science I’m afraid, sleep doesn’t work like that. Anyway, as a result, we’re pretty familiar with the signs that our bodies need more rest: endless yawns, heavy eyes, and sleeping in on the weekends. But, when you go from a few restless nights to more chronic sleep deprivation, where sleep debt accumulates over weeks, you tend to not realise how tired you are. Luckily there are some subtle (and slightly bizarre) signs that reveal when we’re truly sleep deprived.

You rely on clichés.

Do you find yourself peppering platitudes (“What goes around comes around” or “It is what it is”) into everyday conversation? No, you haven’t switched bodies with an old fogey, you might just be sleepy. Studies have shown that lack of sleep can mimic the levels of impairment we feel when we’re drunk. When you’re impaired, you rely on crutches, the things you know; that could mean clichés or anything that will allow you to stay in conversation without expending much energy.

And it’s not just clichés. Sleep-deprived people may start to sound drunk, with slurred speech, trouble finding words and excessive giddiness.

You’re unusually moody.

You’re usually a pretty patient person, but now you have the shortest fuse. Little things, like people being late or missing deadlines, rile you up, and that’s totally normal for someone who’s sleep deprived. One study even showed that people who were low on sleep struggled to accurately read facial expressions; they started seeing non-threatening people as threatening. As you can imagine, this would send most people into an emotional tailspin, thinking the world is out to get them.

You get sick all the time.

You just got over one illness, and the next thing you know another cold has you down for the count. Your body isn’t railing against you (even if you ate a few too many helpings of cheesy chips last weekend), but your immune system is weaker and struggling to fend off the germs you come into contact with every day. One recent study found that people who slept less than five hours per night were four times more likely to catch the common cold than those who slept for six.

You have a serious case of the munchies.

Find yourself digging into the ice cream right after you polished off some late-night pizza? Your hunger just can’t be sated, and there’s a perfectly good explanation for that. Studies have found that short sleeps lead to a lowered level of Leptin (the hormone that decreases your appetite) and an increased level of Ghrelin (the hunger hormone). Talk about a bad combination! Even worse, another study found that participants who slept four-and-a-half hours for four consecutive nights showed increased insulin sensitivity and an elevated risk for diabetes, even though they didn’t change their diet.

You can’t seem to make a decision.

Some choices are always hard to make (Netflix or Sky?), and then there are days when every decision seems like it’s do or die. If you’re low on sleep, you’ll have less blood flow to the Pre-frontal Cortex, the area of your brain responsible for critical thinking. At the same time, there’s hyperactivity in the Amygdala, which is wired for our responses to fear. This leads to all sorts of problems with executive function and includes things like decision making, planning, organising and paying attention.

You lose your libido.

For those of you who are low on sleep, the only thing you want to do when we crawl into bed is, well, sleep! Our sex drives seem non-existent. For men, studies have found that sleep deprivation can lower levels of testosterone, which also lowers their interest in being intimate with their partner…or she just might not be that attractive eh (joke).

You’re breaking out like crazy.

If you wake up in the morning with acne clustered around your chin, don’t think your teenage years have come back to haunt you. It’s a perfectly normal reaction to being sleep deprived or overly stressed, Poor sleep habits can start to make skin less firm and hydrated, that means older. We have Cortisol to thank for that; the hormone spikes in people who are stressed and sleep deprived, and it can break down skin collagen, which stops it from being its usual smooth self.

I thought I’d bash out another blog on an area of NLP that never ceases to fascinate me – EYE ACCESSING CUES. It’s been around since as early as 1890 when James Williams an American Psychologist examined it closely in his book Principles of Psychology…but the book is well boring to be honest! LoL

When people access their memories, their eyes move in quite specific and observable directions. These movements are called eye accessing cues and they correspond to the neural pathways in the brain that store and process sensory details. Everything has a place to be stored and this is how people access stored information.

The eyes play a big part in how a person lives their lives (Yes, I meant to write ‘lives’). As much as a quarter of your brain is devoted to vision and our optic nerves are directly wired to the brain. A person’s eyes tell a story as the eyes move involuntarily and in conjunction with whatever is being thought or felt.

Why is this useful though Shaun?

Well…I’m glad you asked…

… This information can be useful to enhance rapport and communicate more effectively by only asking applicable questions and to build understanding. It allows you to communicate to people in their own language as you match it back.

Here’s the science bit…

….In the early days of NLP, both Grinder and Bandler (You should know who these guys are) believed they had identified a pattern of relationships between the sensory based language people use in general conversation and corresponding eye movement. Jury is out on whether they had actually discovered anything new at all. However, in 1976, Robert Dilts conducted a study at Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco to find out if this had relevance. Using electrodes, he tracked both eye movement and brain wave characteristics of people who were asked questions relating to various senses that involved both memory and mental construction. As a result of these studies, eye movement patterns or EYE ACCESSING CUES were identified.

I remember a long time ago I watched a TV crime drama where the suspect was being interviewed under caution. Behind the mirror stood a Criminal Psychologist (not a real one…an actor silly) who seemed able to state categorically when the suspect was lying and when he was telling the truth. This sort of stuff has seeped into urban myth and it seems almost everyone out there thinks they can tell what you’re thinking just by looking into your eyes…wooOOO00 Spooky!

If only everyone could do this sort of stuff, the world would be a better place. Everyone would know when they are causing offence, when they’re not being listened to and lots of other things too. This is where NLP jumps in with both feet. If everyone learnt at least this area of NLP I’d be:

a) A lot richer because of all the extra training I’d be doing and

b) Calmer because I wouldn’t have to listen to some people dribbling on.

OK, so, what I thought I’d do is tackle EYE ACCESSING CUES in this blog so that I could pass on enough knowledge to allow you to practice this skill for yourself. As with my other blogs, I’ll try and dispel the myth and secrecy surrounding this subject and simply tell you how it is.

I’ll have to do this in 2 parts or the blog will be soooo long it might as well have been an eBook (now there’s an idea).

When I went to my very first NLP event decades ago, I was excited to learn that people’s eye movements had some kind of meaning and weren’t just random. I couldn’t wait to learn how it all worked. This area of NLP has become a fav of mine over the years and it now filters into my everyday life of hypnotherapy, training, coaching, communicating and thinking.

Everyone has their own model of the world, but memories of it can be very different. It all depends on how somebody filters an experience. The memories of events are stored as a picture, sound, feeling or thought (this is known in the NLP world as an Internal Representation).

So then, each of our memories is stored as a specific set of images, sounds, feelings, smells and tastes and this is how we distinguish one set of memories from another. We mentally recreate and recall our experiences (memories) with these stored pictures, words, sounds and physical feelings as we do the thinking bit.

(There…I think I explained that quite well…even if I do say so myself).

All this stuff gives us some meaty information that provides us with clues as to whether the person is thinking in pictures, sounds, feelings or simply talking to themselves (I feel like I do that a lot). A skilled NLP Practitioner (like me) will be on the lookout for the sequencing of eye patterns.

Now…before you get excited…this isn’t going to make you a mind reader, but it will give you some decent information to help discover the way the other person is thinking. (This is known in the NLP world as a Lead Representational System).

There’s a load of writing there. I’m a big fan of pictures so I think it’s about time I included one.

Let me explain this picture a little.

First of all..it’s not me!

This chart is read as you look at another person’s face straight on (This is known in the NLP world as Normally Organised). I can honestly say that I’ve never been described as ‘Normally Organised’ haha. Some people are reverse organised and the eye pattern chart is flipped and opposite. Some left-handed people are reverse organised (but not all) and a few right-handed people are reverse organised. But, generally, the normally organised patterns are fairly consistent across all races, with the possible exception of the Basques in Spain, who seem to have some exceptions to the rule. I’ve spoken to a lot of Basque people and very quickly realised I had no idea what they were on about (Not just because I don’t speak Basque before I get any wise cracks).

However, NEVER ASSUME, ask questions and watch the eyes to find how the person stores information, this is called Calibrating.

]]>Understanding the Difference Between OCD and Phobiahttp://shaunmaloney.com/understanding-the-difference-between-ocd-and-phobia/
Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:12:06 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=1353As someone who studies behaviour I notice the little things in language and actions. I’m sure you’ve noticed that in recent times almost everyone claims to have OCD. It seems to me that this is a much misused term. Being neat and tidy doesn’t necessarily mean you have OCD. All joking aside, I’ve written a little ditto to help explain a bit. If you also work with people I thought it might help you to notice the little things too…it’s not tool long, you never know, it might be useful.

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is different from a phobia in that you might feel excessively anxious but without specific focus. You feel tense and unable to relax. You may feel many of the symptoms of a panic attack but without the climactic rush of panic. You may also be constantly worried about something bad happening to people you care about, and you may feel that your worrying keeps these people safe. The constant worry is very distressing and can make you feel that you’re out of control and might go mad.

Some people describe a strange and scary feeling of being ‘not quite there’, ‘unreal’, or ‘not in my body properly’. This is not in fact and Anxiety Disorder in itself, but happens very often so it’s worth noting. It happens when someone breathes in a shallow, fast way, which upsets the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in their system. It’s frightening, but not dangerous. If you’ve had anxiety for a long time and think you know everything it can throw at you, then it can be very frightening if these feeling of unreality suddenly develop on top of everything else you have to cope with.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) starts with obsessive thoughts, which are so upsetting that you search for a way to get rid of them. If your way is to carry out compulsive behaviours then you have OCD. Compulsions often have to be repeated many times before it feels like the thought has been cancelled out.
The obsessive thoughts are often, but not exclusively, about dirt and disease or about harming someone, either by accident or by giving way to an impulse. Thoughts about germs may lead to compulsive hand washing or cleaning. Fear of causing harm can lead to checking gas taps, electrical connections or the car.
Other compulsions may involve hoarding or a preoccupation with symmetry or arranging things in a particular order.

Sometimes there is an obvious link between the compulsive behaviour and the object of obsession, but in other cases there appears to be no logical connection. For example, someone believed they had to touch every lamp post they passed to prevent something dreadful happening to a member of their family.

Sometimes the compulsions are thoughts rather than actions. Obsessive thoughts about harming someone or doing something immoral or taboo may lead to compulsive thoughts about prayer to cancel out those obsessive thoughts.

Compulsions tend to increase over time, so that you find yourself having to do a longer ritual with more repetitions to achieve the same amount of temporary reduction in anxiety. This can be exhausting and so someone with OCD can eventually get to the point where they avoid as far as possible the things that trigger their compulsions. This can mean, for instance, that someone with a cleanliness obsession actually becomes quite dirty because they can’t face the enormous ritual of taking a shower or washing their hair.

If you have OCD you may well have always been a methodical, accurate and careful person. You may even have had a job that exploited these useful qualities. When you are under stress your useful qualities turn to OCD.

Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between OCD and a phobia. There is a sense in which most anxiety sufferers have an obsession – if you spend all your time worrying about having a panic attack, or finding a spider, or meeting someone in the street, then you are obsessed to a certain extent. And you could say that behaviours such as constantly checking a room for spiders, or crossing the road to avoid a meeting, have an element of compulsion to them.

But there is an extra dimension to OCD which is the link between the obsessions and the compulsions. A person with OCD usually has a strong feeling that they need to carry out their compulsions or some dreadful consequence will ensue and almost always feel that they must do their compulsion in a certain way – like a ritual.

So, if you’re afraid of spiders and you need to check each room for them then you have a phobia. If you feel that letting a spider be in the room is likely to bring bad luck or harm to yourself or your family and if you also check the room in the same way each time, then you have OCD. Similarly, someone who is anxious about the security of their home might double check that they have locked the doors, whereas someone with OCD might check repeatedly, locking and unlocking.

OCD can exist along other anxiety disorders such as social and health phobias and depression.

Please note, that the above does not apply to children..that’s a whole different story.

]]>Why, “Coz it’s always been like that” is my least favourite excuse.http://shaunmaloney.com/why-coz-its-always-been-like-that-is-my-least-favourite-excuse/
Thu, 23 Jul 2015 18:53:15 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=1324The thing about your head is that it’s usually attached to your body. If you’re lucky it’s been attached all your life. Now, here’s the funny bit…why then do we take more notice of our feet (or any other body part for that matter) than what’s in our head? Sounds crazy? The truth is often weirder than fiction. Unfortunately, most of us have very little idea of what’s going on in there and even worse, very little idea of why we keep doing things. That’s good news for therapists such as me but generally bad news for mankind I reckon. So let’s look at how, “coz it’s always been like that” has become my least favourite excuse.

What do you do?First look at what drives your behaviour…and then change it.

Many people would say that intellect drives behaviour, but I don’t think it does because many of your beliefs & values were absorbed even before you grew an intellect. I think that intellect tells you that the way to ‘cure’ overweight is to eat less – but don’t you think that sort of advice is a bit offensive and unhelpful to a large person?! It’s the same with being in the wrong job (“Well – change it!”) or with the wrong partner (“Well, leave!”) and …well, you get the idea. Advice like this is worse than useless – it makes the recipient feel criticised, weak, bewildered and angry….some coaches call this ‘Best Friend Coaching’.

What drives behaviour is beliefs and values that are rooted in our brains, often without us knowing during childhood and continue to be even though we’re big bad adults now (well some of us are). We’re not always conscious of them, but they sit there, telling us what to do, what to fear, what to want and what to hate until we die…worse still, in extreme cases they can actually be the cause of our death (but we’re not going there in this blog). Beliefs drive behaviour into our lives, making our lives what they are today. Beliefs by the thousand suffuse our thinking or should I say our feeling. They keep us doing what we’ve always done and getting what we’ve always got (I wonder how many times I’ve heard that one). What it all boils down to is the fact that knowing your own beliefs and values is a Good Thing. So, what I thought I’d do in this blog is to explain a technique I often use to flush out beliefs. When you know what they are you will be in a much MUCH better place. Now here’s the thing, some beliefs and values will be wrong and will not serve you well, they hinder you, they get in your way and they stop you doing things. These are called Limiting Beliefs (and values). You can easily work on reducing their influence in your life (when you know how).

What Is A Belief?

First let’s look at what a belief is. A belief is something accepted as true mostly without proof. For example, “The sun will rise tomorrow”. You have no proof, but extensive daily living has taught you that it seems very likely. This one is a reasonable belief and most of us share it. I wonder what would happen if we didn’t have this belief? Hmmm…just a thought that I might examine at a later date. How about this one: “Everyone I love will crush me eventually”. I know people who know this; and I mean KNOW THIS. They don’t have a niggling suspicion that it might be true, they KNOW IT just as well as they know the sun will rise tomorrow. These are not happy people. Coaches call these beliefs ‘Mistaken Certainties’. Just so that I don’t paint a totally gloomy picture, here’s another one, “I know that everything always works out fine”. A person holding this belief is likely to be peaceful, loving and happy – even if they’re wrong! So – if these hidden beliefs are so powerful, how can we find the bad ones? I use this technique regularly. I’ll write more in a separate blog (well, I’ve got to ensure you can back now haven’t I?) As with eating an elephant, you’ll need to do it in small pieces; concentrate on one area at a time. If you’re working on being more sociable try listing your beliefs in the area of relationships and people. Here’s how it could play out:List the obvious beliefs about you or your world. Just sit and think about it with pen and paper. Write down sentences which start “I believe…”. Don’t think too hard – let your gut speak. Starting might be tough, but once you get going, they’ll pour out. You might come up with things like: I believe good looking people are arrogant and selfish I believe most people are liars and cheats I believe I am fatter than most people When my mum died, I finally knew that God didn’t exist I know that no one can ever be trusted When my business failed, I realised that I’m a complete failure

So What Now?

Once you have a list of beliefs, look at them. You are looking at your engine. You are looking at the things that push you forward and the things that hold you back. Your fears and your dreams laid bare. THESE BELIEFS are what make you do what you do and get what you get. If you want to get new and different stuff you’ll need to change some of them. Now, this is the point you can finally get back to using your intellect…examine them in turn, evaluate them for accuracy. Are they literally true? What irrefutable evidence do you have? Are they over generalisations? Are they routed in a past which is no longer relevant? Are they more about pain and fear – than they are about truth? How could you modify the wording of each belief to remove the faults and make it accurate? Which beliefs need to go to File 13?

That Pink Mercedes Convertible

Now this is where you’ll be thinking “What is he on about now? What’ve cars got to do with anything?” Well, I’m glad you asked… …you know how if you’re thinking of buying a new car of a certain type you’ll keep seeing that type of car in the streets? That’s because of a part of your brain called the “Reticular Activating System” (R.A.S.). When you load your new car into your conscious thinking, your RAS will note that you have an interest in it and it will remain alert for relevant sensory data and make sure that your conscious mind is made aware of it. It will do this subconsciously – you will need no effort to make it work. Those pink Mercedes convertibles were out there before, but your R.A.S. wasn’t programmed and so you never noticed them. Well, now that you have examined these beliefs of yours, they will be in your R.A.S. and will start to trigger new awarenesses. Throughout your day, you’ll see events unfolding in which one of your beliefs is at work. Well, I hope you get the picture. I have other exercises I use with clients, but this article is already too long, and you’ll get a good start from this technique. That’s it for now…Stay safe.

]]>Wouldn’t You Like to Have More Choices?http://shaunmaloney.com/wouldnt-you-like-to-have-more-choices/
Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:27:19 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=199Hypnocoaching and NLP offers many things to its followers and practitioners. It’s all about expanding choices; wouldn’t you like to have more choices?

One way to expand thinking and to reveal other choices that might have been previously hidden from you is to think ‘differently’. The process of reframing can be as complicated as you like, but essentially it’s about looking at things in a different way, it’s about taking yourself out and looking back into a situation as an observer…to be honest, it’s about lots of things that I’ll hopefully get around to writing about one day (hopefully).

Here’s a little metaphorical tool that I came across a long time ago and have used to great effect in many situations. You will have read my past posts on the use of metaphors and you already know how powerful they can be. This one is a metaphor that helps to reframe thinking and provide motivation. Feel free to use it with your clients. It works especially well for those who are stuck in a rut or require a kick start to examine their options…ALL of their options.

It goes like this:

Imagine that you have won money in a competition:

Each morning your bank will deposit £86,400.00 into your private account just for your exclusive use (for those of my readers in the USA insert $).

However, this prize comes with conditions.

The first set of conditions :

Everything that you didn’t spend during each day will be taken away from you.

You may not simply transfer money into some other account.

You may only spend it.

Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another £86,400.00 for that day.

The second set of conditions:

The bank can end that game, without warning; at any time it can say, “It’s over, the game is over!”

It can close the account and you will not be able to open a new one.

What would you personally do?

You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right? Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love, right? Even for people you don’t know because you couldn’t possibly spend all that on yourself, right? You would try to spend every penny and use it all, right?

ACTUALLY, THIS GAME IS ALREADY YOUR REALITY!

Each of us is in possession of such a magical bank. We just can’t seem to see it.

THE MAGICAL BANK IS TIME ITSELF.

Each awakening morning we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life and when we go to sleep at night any remaining time is NOT credited to us. What we haven’t lived up that day is lost forever. Yesterday is gone forever. Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time…AND WITHOUT WARNING.

Well…what will you do with your 86,400 seconds?

Aren’t these seconds worth so much more than the same amount in pounds?

Think about it…and while you’re doing that rethink about this:

Enjoy every second of your life because time races by so much quicker than you think.

Take care of yourself and enjoy life…go on, try it, I promise it’ll be good.

Until next time.

]]>Do you know where your comfort zone is? How do you know?http://shaunmaloney.com/do-you-know-where-your-comfort-zone-is-how-do-you-know/
http://shaunmaloney.com/do-you-know-where-your-comfort-zone-is-how-do-you-know/#respondThu, 14 May 2015 19:28:59 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=71We hear it all the time “Doh, I’m well out of my comfort zone” and “Oh my gosh, I can’t do that”. Do you know where your comfort zone is? How do you know? Truth is…you don’t know about them all… your comfort zones exists in a continual state of ‘bendiness’.

Pahaha, I can hear you all now, “Bendiness? That’s a new word, Shaun’s finally tipped over the edge”.

I thought I’d explain a few things about comfort zones, as I understand them. Those trainers out there can use this explanation when setting out your ground rules at the start of your sessions. Those Hypnotherapists out there can really watch for areas that clients might not be committing to quite as much as they might be telling you, the Hypnocoaches out there can use this information to safely stretch your clients and those Psychologists out there can…well…analyse it and write about it later?

It speaks for itself really; a comfort zone is an area where we feel comfortable. In our comfort zone we perform well (arguably) and feel confident. We begin to feel uneasy and even frightened when we move outside this zone. People get anxious and fearful simply because they’re stepping out of the psychological boundaries they themself have created.

Well, because what is comfortable for you now will, at some point, become a limitation. We all had to leave the comfort of the womb in order to grow and develop our potential. Think of another, more recent time when you were forced to move out of your comfort zone, when accepting a promotion or bungee jumping for example; now think about where it took you and the final destination.

So, here’s my take on it…

…It helps to think that there are actually 3 zones:

1. Comfort zone

2. Stretch zone

3. Panic zone

Now, if you think of these 3 zones set up as concentric circles. The inner circle is your comfort zone, the second circle your stretch zone and the outer circle your panic zone. Can’t think? Here’s a picture – Click.

The best place to learn is in your stretch zone. We don’t learn much in our comfort zone…we’re generally lazy like that. We also don’t learn much in the panic zone, or at least we’ll concentrate on only learning what we need to escape the panic zone; this learning doesn’t have to be permanent. So it makes sense to help people come out of their comfort zone and sit in their stretch zone. However, the stretch zone isn’t really that comfortable…come on… if it was comfortable it’d be called the comfort zone surely?

Because the stretch zone isn’t normally that comfy, we don’t have to stay in it. We can dip in and out. When we dip out of our comfort zone into the stretch zone the boundaries are blurred and, if done correctly, the boundaries between the two zones can be flexed… or bent. ‘Bendiness’… Things are sounding better now aren’t they?

When working with a client or group of learners, it’s your job to bounce them into their stretch zone and then return them safely to their comfort zone, keep doing it and the boundaries between the two flex and the result will be an expansion of the comfort zone… so, in other words, the more you do this bouncing the more you become comfortable with whatever you’re bouncing with.

How do we expand our comfort zones?

Try this exercise on for size:

Identify 3 of your comfort zones…and write them down.

This first step will allow you to identify and examine your limitations. What is holding you back? Are there things you want to do, places you want to go? Yet somehow you speak about it, know the theory, but just don’t take action. These are your comfort zones. For example, you may lack discipline in your fitness plan, or you might be fearful of letting go of your monthly salary to start your own business. You know where you are holding back!

2. Name a comfort zone you are ready to challenge being ready and willing to change …and write it down.

Next, break it up into chunks by answering the following three questions (you can add more):

How does it hold you back?What are your fears?How do you know you are ready to change?

3. Face the fear and expand.

You see, the thing is, comfort zones are relative; they are merely the limited perceptions of our minds. Comfort for me might be stagnation for another and my advance is another’s retreat. We have nothing to fear in overstepping the boundaries we have created in our own minds.

Next, clearly list the actions you could take to expand your comfort zones. What are you going to do differently in the next 7 days?

You’ll need to be specific about dates and what support you will need.

I hope this article helps. Remember, you are the author of your own life; you create your own destiny. As you break down your barriers and allow for bendiness, confidence and passion emerge and grant you nothing butForward Motion. You are in charge of your own mind and therefore your results.

]]>http://shaunmaloney.com/do-you-know-where-your-comfort-zone-is-how-do-you-know/feed/0Can You Picture It? – Your guide to visualisationhttp://shaunmaloney.com/can-you-picture-it-your-guide-to-visualisation/
Mon, 13 Apr 2015 14:51:53 +0000http://shaunmaloney.com/?p=1098Hey everyone, I trust you’re all well. A bit of visualisation for you this time; the other day, as I was driving home from a particularly upbeat training session, I got to thinking about how important imagery was to us…well, come on….there’s not much else to think about whilst driving on the motorway is there? It’s all around us – imagery I mean (not boring motorways), and IMHO we can’t live without it. Even words, if you think about it, are a form of imagery. Where would my blogging be if I couldn’t fall back on images in the form of words and pictures?

It’s because imagery is so important to us that we can use it very effectively in the Hypnocoaching world. Imagery and visualising images is such an important tool that I can’t believe I haven’t written on it until now…Ooops! I aim to remedy that right now with this blog, I hope you find it interesting…as always, please feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to discuss further – very competitive rates! LoL.

So, what is visualisation? I’m glad you asked that – visualisation is generally considered to be any technique that creates images, diagrams, pictures or animations to communicate a message.

Visualisation through imagery has been used to communicate ideas since the beginning of man (and that’s way before I was born). We all know of cave paintings, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Greek geometry and the list goes on. Visualisation nowadays gets into the worlds of science, education, engineering and even interactive computer based multimedia.

The cool bit is that those images or those pictures don’t necessarily only have to live outside in the world around us; they can live inside our own minds too. Sounds kind of obvious huh? Well, it is really; we all picture things much of the time – we even do it when we’re asleep. So, why don’t more of us know how to control these images? Why aren’t more of us visualising the things we want more often? Well, maybe because I haven’t written a blog on it until now!! (Here I go again!).

Ok, so now I’ve rambled on too long. Wouldn’t you like to know how to expand your ability to visualise? Wouldn’t you like someone to provide you with some easy steps so that your powers of visualisation increase almost overnight? Do you want to know how? Ok, ok I’ll get on with it:

There are 4 real parts of visualisation that I’ve outlined. You can learn and practice them whenever you like really, but as soon as you start I can guarantee that you’ll see things differently (See what I did there?).

1. How Often?

Frequency – The first aspect of visualisation is frequency. This is number of times that you visualise yourself performing in an excellent way. Just the same way as, if you beat yourself up too often you’ll end up believing it, the opposite applies too (cool huh?). The more frequently you repeat a clear mental picture of your very best performance or result, the more rapidly it will appear as part of your reality.

2. How Long?

Duration – The second element of visualisation has to do with the length of time you can hold the picture in your mind each time you replay it. If you’re really working at this, you might be able to hold a mental picture of yourself performing at your best for several minutes, or even longer. The longer you can hold your mental picture, the more deeply it will be impressed into your subconscious.

3. How Clearly?

Vividness – This third element of visualisation has a direct relationship between how clearly you can see your goal in your mind and how quickly it transfers into your reality. When you set a new goal for yourself, your image of this goal will probably have been vague or fuzzy, or even in black and white or grey…just not too clear at all. However, the more often you repeat it mentally, the clearer it becomes for you. Have you ever witnessed this? Try imagining the image as a TV picture…Huh? What are you talking about Shaun? Haha, relax…with a TV picture you can simply pick up the remote and alter any of the picture qualities whenever you wish…can’t you? Well, the cool thing is that you can do this with your mental images too. Just form the image of a contrast switch, a colour switch, a volume switch or any switch that you can control. If your image appears in black and white simply adjust your colour switch, if the image is fuzzy simply adjust the contrast and so on…try it…it works! Eventually, it will become crystal clear. At that point, the goal will suddenly appear in your world exactly as you imagined it.

4. How Intensely?

Intensity – The fourth element of visualisation has to do with the amount of emotion you attach to your image. Some people might argue that this is the most important and powerful part of the visualisation process. Sometimes, if your emotion is intense enough and your visual image is clear enough, you will immediately achieve it.

Watch out though, the whole process can help you or it can hurt you. Like nature, the power of visualisation is neutral. It’s a double-edged sword so make sure you appreciate that it can cut in either direction. Visualisation can either make you a success or make you a failure – like always, it’s up to you really. Visualisation brings you whatever you vividly and intensely imagine, whether good or bad.

Have fun with this, but first another word of warning – if you’re practicing this on the train make sure you know the person sitting opposite or those faces you’re pulling are going to attract more attention that you’d like.